Materials have been dyed and colored for thousands of years. While natural substances have historically been used to color most materials, these substances are often unable to permanently dye many types of materials. There is, therefore, a large demand for synthetic dye formulations that permanently color a material, including natural and artificial fibers, among many other beneficial uses. One of the largest markets for permanent dye formulations is the hair coloring market.
Most permanent hair color products contain a developer and an alkalizing agent. The developer is usually an oxidizing agent such as hydrogen peroxide in water or a cream lotion, and the alkalizing agent is most often ammonia or ammonia substitutes such as organic amines. Alkalizing agents cause the hair to swell and thus allow the pigment to penetrate the hair cuticle deep enough to reach and replace the natural melanin.
Several studies have suggested that the chemicals found in synthetic hair dyes, including ammonia, organic bases such as amines, lead, organic solvents and coal tar derivatives, are either toxic or can have undesirable side-effects such as hair loss, burning, redness, itchy skin, swelling, or breathing trouble. Moreover, most hair dye formulations employ oxidizing agents in high concentration. As a result, many people decide to forego hair dyes to avoid exposure to the chemicals found in the coloring compositions.
Although there are some natural formulations that employ compounds found in nature, they tend to be inconsistent and, often, provide only temporary results.
As a result, there is a continued need for coloring compositions that use natural compounds rather than synthetic chemicals to color hair permanently. Additionally, there is a continued demand for efficient and environmentally-friendly formulations and methods for coloring hair either permanently or semi-permanently that do not involve the use of organic solvents or organic bases. Further, there is a continued demand for hair dye formulations that use oxidizing agents in lower concentration.
Most formulations for dying hair are made to produce a color specific to a given chemical colorant. However, in managing the target grey hair, it is frequently desired to reproduce the original natural color of the hair rather than to impart a new color. There is thus a continuing demand for hair coloring products that reproduce as closely as possible the original natural color of the hair.
Without intending to be bound by theory, possible components of natural coloring compositions are natural and/or organic molecules that form non-covalent interactions with color polymers. While traditional methods of synthesis use synthetic chemicals such as solvents to form chemical products, non-covalent derivitization (“NCD”) uses the natural non-covalent intermolecular interactions between a directing material and a target compound to modify the properties of the target compound. When the directing material and the target compound interact, the resulting derivative possesses properties that can be significantly different from either the target compound or the directing material alone. Often, the properties of the derivative can be modified by altering the ratio of target compound to directing material, and/or changing the directing material. Another benefit of the NCD method is that the directing material and the target compound are typically both incorporated into the product, thereby eliminating at least some waste during production.